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PORT PIRIE JUNCTION
South Australian Railways

by John Hinson

Photograph 1962, from the collection of Dr J W F Scrimgeour

The interior of Port Pirie Junction box, Solomonstown, showing the McKenzie & Holland lever frame. The box controlled lines of three different gauges:

• 4' 8½" for the Trans-Australian line to Port Augusta and Kalgoorlie, extended south from Port Augusta along the western side of the Flinders range
• 5' 3" for the SAR line to Adelaide, extended from Redhill just before the Second World War. During the 1980s, this gauge was eliminated and replaced by the "standard" gauge of 4' 8½".
• 3' 6" for the SAR line to Peterborough and Broken Hill

Photograph 1962, from the collection of Dr J W F Scrimgeour

It's nothing new to see the signalman yakking on the phone, but the apparent lounging position is rather necessary as he is using the old-fashioned type where the mouthpiece is fixed on the front of the equipment case. A similar telephone is mounted on the wall above the train register desk.

In the foreground is a Miniature Electric Train Staff instrument, a type once in very common use in Australia. An empty space with circular stain shows that a similar instrument once stood alongside it.

Port Pirie Junction no longer exists. A rearrangement of the lines in the area resulted in the opening of a new station named Coonamia in the early 1970s on a new loop parallel with the Highway 1 by-pass, replacing Port Pirie Junction and Ellen Street stations, but it has subsequently fallen out of use and trains no longer call there.